NativeCo News

Sealaska corporate executives are banking on the sometimes-truth, “If you build it, they will come,” by making a commitment to biomass as an energy source.

The company this month announced it will convert its Juneau headquarters from oil to a wood-fired boiler system. A stream of wood pellets will come from British Columbia until a regional provider can do it.

Sealaska‘s four-story building is too small to support the distribution system alone, so additional commercial building operators will have to follow Sealaska’s example and convert to biomass heat for the economics to work out.

Banking on others seeing the benefits is a risk, Sealaska Executive Vice President Rick Harris said.

“If you see me out there with a coal shovel next December you’ll know something didn’t work,” Harris said. CONTINUE »

NativeCo News

Unable to learn the whereabouts of corporation records, gain access to financial statements or get face and phone time with corporation board members, fed up shareholders in Alaska’s 13th Regional Corp. are searching for ways to force action and get answers.

The corporation’s disarray and disconnectedness to its shareholders is bad enough that a former board president, Liz Ross, has gathered paperwork to file a grievance against the corporation in federal court.

“You file and force them to come into compliance,” Ross explained, adding that the corporation, against its own rules, hasn’t held a required annual meeting in three years. CONTINUE »

NativeCo News

(from Doyon.com) In preparation for the Fairbanks North Star Borough (FNSB) mayoral election on October 6, Doyon recently distributed a questionnaire to the six mayoral candidates and prepared a report card based on all candidates’ responses to questions on topics including taxes, the economy, education, villages issues, and Alaska Native business involvement in FNSB discussions and decisions. The report card, which is part of Doyon’s Get Out the Native Vote initiative, is intended to educate voters on the issues and candidates, and encourage voters to “voice their choice” in the election next month. For the full report card, including candidates’ comments, click here to download.

NativeCo News

According to newsminer.com – Alaska state senator Albert Kookesh will challenge a fishing citation he received and seek a court opinion on whether a state wildlife officer has jurisdiction over subsistence fishermen on federal land. Mr. Kookesh is also the board chair of Sealaska, the Alaska native corporation for Southeast Alaska.

“I want NARF (Native American Rights Fund) involved with this. I want to make sure the Native community is involved with this. I want to make sure AFN is involved,” he said.

He has contacted Larry EchoHawk, head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and plans to speak to Kim Elton, the director of Alaska affairs for the Interior Department.

“We’ll see who wants to get on the bandwagon,” he said.

At an Aug. 12 hearing in Angoon, Kookesh and the three others pleaded not guilty to one count of exceeding the subsistence salmon limit. A trial is set for Oct. 5. For the full story on newsminer.com, click here.

NativeCo TV

The Bristol Bay Native Corporation remains “proactively neutral” about the Pebble Project. The report below implies BBNC is putting a halt to the road building ambitions of the Pebble Project when in reality BBNC continues to remain neutral.

The following story is based on a radio interview in which Jason Metrokin, President & CEO of BBNC states, “While we’re continuing to find out more about the project, we’re continuing to do our fact finding… We realized that one of the major components of this project that we actually have control over is the subsurface acreage to the potential road corridor between the mine site and the port site. A large portion of that road actually covers Native corporation grounds.” Listen to the full story from Dillingham’s KDLG radio station by clicking here.

NativeCo News

Goldbelt, Incorporated is an urban, Alaska Native, for-profit corporation located in Juneau, Alaska. Its primary purpose is to manage assets and to conduct business for the benefit of its shareholders, approximately 3,200 people, almost all of Alaska Native heritage.

Shareholders collectively hold the entire 272,200 shares of Goldbelt stock, representing assets of approximately $62 million plus over 32,000 acres of land in the vicinity of Juneau, Alaska. The company is named after a richly mineralized zone in Southeast Alaska that stretches along the mainland from Frederick Sound on the south to Berners Bay on the north – an area encompassing Goldbelt’s land holdings.

NativeCo News

The NANA region encompasses more than 38,000 square miles and is comprised of 11 villages

Region

Comprised of 11 villages, the NANA Region is a vast, beautiful 38,000 square miles located in Northwest Alaska. The borders of our lands, and those of the region’s main governing body, the Northwest Arctic Borough, are the same and cover an area of land that is roughly the size of the state of Indiana. As a corporation, we manage the surface and subsurface rights of approximately 2.2 million acres of land in the region to the benefit of our 12,500 Iñupiat shareholders.

Shareholders

More than 7,300 people call the NANA region home. Of these, more than 85 percent of region’s residents are Iñupiat, descendants of the people who settled the region thousands of years ago. Subsistence plays a key role in the lives of shareholders. For centuries, the Iñupiat have relied on hunting and fishing. For most families in the NANA region, the household economy is a mix of participation in subsistence activities and full-time or part-time employment.

Subsistence is not just economic necessity – it also plays a strong cultural and social role – and the preservation of subsistence resources is a vital element of NANA shareholder cultural identity and values.

NANA Mission

We improve the quality of life for our people by maximizing economic growth, protecting and enhancing our lands, and promoting healthy communities with decisions, actions, and behaviors inspired by our Iñupiat Ilitqusiat values consistent with our core principles.

NANA Lands

Today, NANA owns 2.28 million acres, or approximately 9.4 percent of the 24.3 million acres that comprise the NANA region. NANA lands encompass an area that is roughly the size of Indiana. In 1972, a merger of the area’s regional corporation and ten of the eleven village corporations resulted in NANA’s ownership of both the surface and subsurface acreage, with the exception of the surface acreage Kikiktagruk Iñupiat Corporation (KIC) retained.The land selection and conveyance process is now largely completed, but the work of the NANA Lands Department continues to ensure that our rights are never again in question.

Resources

Business Lines

NANA operations, which extend from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica across the continental United States to the Middle East and South Pacific, cover these four categories: engineering & construction; resource development; facilities management and logistics; and information technology and telecommunications. Our clients and partners are world-class professionals – petroleum and mining, private enterprise, and government operations.

NativeCo News

Bering Straits Native Corporation (BSNC) was formed in 1972 as the regional Alaska Native Corporation for 6,333 original shareholders under authority of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The Bering Straits region encompasses the majority of Alaska’s Seward Peninsula and the coastal lands of eastern Norton Sound. BSNC owns and manages nearly two million acres of subsurface estate of land selected by 17 village corporations in the region. This region is one of the most culturally diverse areas in the state with three Native languages spoken: Siberian Yup’ik, Central Yup’ik and Inupiaq.

BSNC is headquartered in Nome, Alaska. Regional operations include real estate management and development, tourism, construction, mining services and sales of rock and aggregate. BSNC also has offices in Anchorage, which oversee the company’s government contract work under the SBA’s 8(a), HubZone and small business programs. Anchorage operations also include construction and various support services for commercial clients and shareholder services.